Mass Effect: War In the Shadows
by Mythos-Rider
Summary: OC story that starts 6 weeks before Shepard is brought back to life. The Reapers aren't the only threat to the galaxy, and not every cause is a good one. Please review, I love feedback!  D **Rated M for violence, sex, drugs, swearing, etc. More to come.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Hard to Hear**

_Omega – 6 weeks before 'the Resurrection'_

It was usually a loud place, to say the least. Bright lights, loud, repetitive music, the screams of some victim of one violent crime or another, and the more than occasional gunshot. Omega was an easy place to find information, which was the only reason why Alaeceri would ever come to a pit like this. The Asari shook her head a little as she passed by an alley and saw some drug addict who was obviously higher than he had any business being, rolling on the ground and clawing at the air as though he were being attacked. "Idiots..." Alaeceri muttered, rolling he eyes as she kept walking.

Omega was a dangerous place, of course. But that didn't matter to the Asari. She had her biotics, of course, and a well made pistol at her right hip as well. Decades of training as a commando was also pretty useful as well. All put together, Alaeceri was more dangerous than Omega, at least in her own mind. And that was all she needed to move with confidence through the galaxy's most renowned scum hive.

She came to the right building after just a few more moments, the green neon lights contrasting with her purple hued skin. Dark blue eyes dart around as she made sure that she hadn't been followed and wasn't being watched, and then Alaeceri brought up her omni-tool and sent the single word message her contact was waiting for. "Here."

A couple minutes later the door in front of her slid open, and Alaeceri was looking at a middle aged human male, his hair a little greyer than one might think, given he was still closer to fifty than to sixty years old. "You're late." The man said, peaking out through the threshold to glance left and right.

"Relax, Jerry. I check. I wasn't followed." Alaeceri said, raising a hand and holding back a sigh. The man was well informed, and willing to share. But sometimes Alaeceri wanted to hit him, hard.

Jerry grunted in response, stepping to the side of the doorway and nodding into his home, inviting the Asari in. "You know better than I do that caution on Omega keeps you alive."

"It keeps _you_ alive, maybe. I keep myself alive, thank you very much." The Asari corrected smugly.

The human sighed and shut the door, engaging several locking systems. "Then you just haven't stepped out of the pond yet." Jerry said, walking into a room at the side and picking up a small, apparently empty vial.

"'Stepped out of the pond?'" Alaeceri asked, some slight confusion obvious in her tone.

"You know, your a big fish in a small pond?" Jerry clarified. When the Asari just stared at him, her pretty face twisted in a questioning look, he just sighed again, and shook his head. "Look, its not important." He concluded. Jerry offered the vial to Alaeceri, letting her take it.

"Um... thanks?" The Asari began, clearly unsure of what Jerry was doing. "Does this have something to do with that '_big discovery_' that you needed to tell me about?" Alaeceri asked, looking at the vial, her eyes narrowed.

"Be careful with that, will you?" Jerry said, taking an hurried step away from Alaeceri as she moved to set the vial down. "That **is** my discovery, Alaeceri. Its called '_stargazer._'" He said, his right eye twitching a little bit before he took a deep breath.

"Okay... what is 'stargazer,' Jerry?" Alaeceri asked, giving him back the vial.

"Its this... uh... well, its an invisible, odourless, tasteless gas, which happens to be a highly lethal toxin." He said, setting the vial down on a desk carefully.

"It looks empty..." Alaeceri said. "How can you tell its in there?"

"Because I put it in there. Look, you're not asking very good questions here, Alaeceri. 'stargazer' was made by some insane freedom fighter to use as a trap against people who intruded in his little fortresses that he set up. It has two effects. First, and most obvious, its an extremely potent hallucinogenic substance. One vial of the stuff would put a Krogan on its ass for the better half of a week. And that's the user friendly effect..."

"Uh oh." Alaeceri said, a little worried now.

"Damn right 'uh oh.'" Jerry said, walking over to a computer screen and bringing up some data. "Unlike most modern hallucinogens, 'stargazer' doesn't leave your system quickly. The second effect is that with prolonged exposure is causes bone degeneration."

"How does it do that, exactly?" The Asari asked, curiosity overtaking now.

"I don't know! Does it matter? It... it gets into your bone marrow somehow. Moves from respiratory system to circulatory system, that's how it makes you high. Gets into your blood, and then your brain."

"Sounds like a blast." Alaeceri said, her tone dry.

"This isn't a joke. Imagine what happens if this gets in the hands of the Blue Suns or Eclipse!" Jerry said, obviously worried.

"Or Blood Pack?" The Asari added.

Jerry shrugged. "I doubt they'd be bothered by it. You know what Krogan are like." He responded. As Alaeceri was about to answer, Jerry held up his hand to stop her. "Look, _who_ gets it isn't important. Its always going to be extremely dangerous in anyone's hands. I figured that it might be something you want to look into." He said.

"Oh really? And why is that?" Alaeceri asked.

"Because you're a goody-two-shoes who spends her time flying around the galaxy and sticking her nose in other peoples' business, where most one hundred fifty something Asari are usually running around exploring the stars, dancing in clubs, or breaking hearts, don't they?" Jerry said, grinning. He handed her the vial, and then brought up his omni-tool and pressed a few buttons.

A second or so later, Alaeceri's own omni-tool beeped, and she brought it up. "What's this?" She asked. She had gotten mail from Jerry.

"Its a list. People. Places. Anything I think you might need to get something done. People first, if you ask me. You're going want some back-up." Jerry answered.

"So what, you want me to go and recruit people? Why don't you come along?" Alaeceri asked.

"Yes, recruit people. Come on, you have a ship, right? You're probably lonely flying around the galaxy anyway. Maybe you'll make some friends. And I'm not going with you because I'm afraid. I thought you knew that. Find someone who isn't scared of getting shot." Jerry finished talking, crossing his arms and smiling.

Alaeceri nodded for a moment and then left, making her way to the docking bay to get into the ship. Jerry was right, she would need some help. She opened up the message Jerry had given her. It was just people and places, but information regarding 'stargazer' too. Apparently, Jerry had "acquired" it from some group called the Nova Crusaders. She sighed and took a look at the list of names, each of which had information about the people. Most of them were outlaws, former mercenaries, questionable people. The right kind for the job, to be certain, at least where their skill sets were concerned. Hopefully they were the right kind morally too...

_The next day, on a remote Alliance colony..._

He didn't even know why he cared. Desmond didn't know these people, wasn't attached to them in anyway. But watching them getting cut down, their home invaded by whatever ass holes were here now. The planet was called _Perfici Domus_. It was Latin for "Perfect Home." So much for that idea. It was a battlefield now.

Desmond saw a chance to move when the mechs turned to head away from his direction, and stood up, sprinting to cover. He moved carefully once he was there, making his way slowly to the Port Communications Tower. If only he had more than a pistol, he might even be able to risk engaging the mechs, at least if he could fight one at a time. But the Comm Tower was close now, and checking all around, he ran for the door. It was locked. "Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding." He said to no one in particular, sighing loudly. Bringing up his omni-tool, Desmond quickly hacked into the door's locks, and managed to override them.

The door opened and he backed in, making sure to re-lock the door behind him. Someone cleared their throat, and Desmond turned, finding himself at gunpoint, by almost a dozen armed men and women. He didn't live here, so chances were pretty good that he was on the verge of getting shot. But Desmond couldn't ever resist the urge to push his luck. "So, if all of you are down here, who is calling in back-up?"

A woman got up from behind some makeshift cover – a table turned on its side – and approached him, taking his pistol away. "You care to give us a reason not to kill you right now?" She asked, frowning at him, brown eyes staring angrily into Desmond's own light blue orbs.

"Uh, two." Desmond replied. "Firstly, because I re-locked the doors instead of leaving them open for the mechs and whoever they belong to." He said. That seemed to make just about everyone in the room with him, except the woman who was now holding his gun in her left hand, nod and lower their weapons. "And second, because I think I can bail us all out of this situation, but I need access to the Communications Network."

The woman raised an eyebrow to that. "The Comm Network? How's that going to help? We aren't getting help any time soon." She said, relaxing her posture a little bit.

"Maybe." Desmond conceded. "But if we can live long enough to rig it to scramble those Mechs' targeting systems, they'll kill each other for us."

That got a few people to widen their eyes. "You can do that?" A man asked, sounding like he was less that sure he believed Desmond.

"If history is anything to go by then yes, I can." Desmond said. He looked from the man back to the woman that stood in front of him.

It took a few seconds, but eventually she nodded at Desmond. "Follow me." She said, walking to an elevator and opening the door. She, along with two of the 'guards' walked in, and Desmond did in fact follow with them.

"You realize we're taking a huge risk trusting him, right?" A man asked. The woman who had taken Desmond's pistol seemed to be in charge.

"Of course. But I don't see any other options. Eventually those mechs and their handlers are going to find us in here and we'll be dead. We've got to try something." She said, sighing and letting her shoulders slump. She was obviously tired. And why shouldn't she be? The attack had been going on for about twelve hours now.

"Um, instead of calling me 'him,' my name's Desmond. Just, throwing that out there." Desmond said. The other three turned to look at him and frowned. After a moment Desmond shrugged. "Okay, I'll just shut up and saves your lives without conversation. Works for me." He said, letting his sarcasm become almost painfully obvious.

The doors slid open and all four walked out. They were in the top room of the Comm Tower, and Desmond was lead to the primary controls. "Jess, do you think this has anything to do with those other colonies that ended up ghost towns?" One of the men asked as Desmond looked over the controls before bringing up his omni-tool again.

"I really hope not." The woman, apparently 'Jess,' answered back.

As she finished her to-the-point reply, there was an explosion, and Desmond peaked out through the window over the controls. "Uh oh..." He said. The other three gathered to look. There were people on the ground now, the mechs following them around. Everyone of them was wearing camouflaged armor. They didn't look military though. There was no saluting, no squads, no formations. Just people with guns that clearly commanded the YMIR Mechs that were terrorizing the colony.

"Okay... on with it." Desmond said, more to himself than to anyone else. At least if his plan worked the mechs would also attack the people who were behind this invasion. It wasn't a batarian slaver thing, as humans, turians and even a couple krogan could be seen. "So I'm curious. Is there anything about your colony that might draw in crazy paramilitary bastards with more heavy mechs than they have any business owning?"Desmond asked. He actually kind of hoped the answer was yes, because then it might actually make some kind of sense.

"Not that I'm away of, no." Jess said.

Desmond sighed and looked at her. If she hadn't threatened to kill him, he might have found her attractive. Hell, he still might if they made it out alive. But first making it out alive had to become more than just a plan. "Alright, well, lets hope this works." Desmond said. He started putting a program into the Comm systems. If it didn't work, they were dead...


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Out of the Frying Pan...**

_Perfici Domus, 4 hours later..._

"This is taking a long time." Jess said, peaking out the window again. People were being dragged out of their homes and anywhere else where they had hidden. "Ah fuck. Don't set off your hacking program." She said.

Desmond looked up at her from the Comm screen. "What? But its almost done." He said. It was literally, just finishing and ready to set off.

"Look, those mechs out there right now aren't shooting, their aggressive behaviour has been shut down. The people who own them are gathering some of the colonists out there. If you just let them shoot at anything that has a heat signature, innocent people are gonna die." Jess said, frowning at Desmond.

His finger was on the button to activate the program. Desmond walked over to the window and looked out, then sighed and shook his head. "Oh hell." He muttered. Desmond ran his left hand through his dark hair from front to back, and made his way back to the Communication controls. "You sent a distress call, right?" He asked.

Jess nodded. "Uh, yeah. Not that it will do much good. We're far away from any alliance patrol routes. Chances are pretty good that anyone who hears the call is probably a pirate or something." She said, hand on her hip as she spoke with a 'no shit' tone.

Desmond nodded again, and then sighed again. "Alright. Shit." He said. Desmond hit a few keys and looked at Jess and the other two. "Okay, you want to save those people down there? Somebody get me a few guns, I'll get them out of harms way. Then you turn on the targeting program from up here and the mechs will go ape shit. Make sense?" Desmond proposed.

"What? Exactly what do you think you're going to do?" One of the guards asked, one eyebrow raised.

"First, I'm going to get outside. I'll do what I can to get the colonists out of there. Then hopefully we can get somewhere safe. Once we're further away from the mechs that those other ass holes, you set of the program. They'll target whatever is closest to them." Desmond said. He was grinning as though it was an obvious plan.

The two other guards looked at each other, clearly unsure of the idea. Jess stepped forward though, and handed Desmond his pistol back, as well as giving him her assault rifle. "You know you're probably going to get killed, right?" She asked, looking at him like he was an idiot.

Desmond shrugged and then went to the elevator. "If those mechs don't get taken out we'll all die anyway." Desmond said.

With that, he stepped into the elevator and set it to take him down to the ground floor. When the doors opened the remaining guards and turned and looked at him curiously. "What the hell is going on?" One man asked.

"I'm gonna go have some fun." Desmond said, smiling and walking to the door. "Lock it behind me, will you?" He asked. Desmond opened the door and ducked outside, making his way carefully towards the open area where the colonists were being taken prisoner. Desmond was safely behind some cover, checking the situation out as best as he could before looking back towards the Comm Tower. "Maybe I should have thought this through..." He said.

With a shrug, Desmond began to creep forward until he could hear talking. "... we gave you worthless sacs of crap a chance to surrender. Nobody says no to the Nova Crusaders, do you understand?" One of the invaders said, a turian with a shotgun in one hand, speaking to some colonists who were on their knees. As one of them tried to speak up, the turian lashed out, striking her in the side of the head with the shotgun, rendering her unconscious.

Desmond winced, and glanced from side to side. As most of the other people, these 'Nova Crusaders' moved away, likely to search for more prisoners, Desmond made a move. He closed in on the turian, who had lowered the barrel of the shotgun to the woman's head. "Hopefully the rest of you are learning the lesson she didn't. He said.

But before he could pull the trigger Desmond was there. He stood up behind the turian and grabbed his chin with one hand and the head fringe with the other, and twisted hard. A loud crack was head, and the turian dropped to the ground, not moving. Desmond moved to the people who were on their knees and started undoing the bindings that kept their hands behind their backs. "No time to talk. Set loose as many people as you can and then run like hell that way." Desmond said, pointing out to what was essentially a farming area of the colony.

The colonists nodded together, and got up, freeing their fellows, one of them lifting the woman onto his shoulders to carry her, since she was obviously not going to be able to get herself out of there. After watching them go, Desmond looked around at the mechs, all of which were just standing. Apparently he was indeed being watched by Jess and the others up in the Comm Tower, and they were giving him time to get away before telling the mechs to kill everything in sight. "Always good to have people who aren't total bastards backing you up." Desmond muttered to himself.

He was on the move again shortly, but ducked into a gap between two buildings when he heard a voice, and the sound of several footsteps. "What do you mean 'they're gone?'" Asked a voice. It was a krogan, definitely. After a few moments, the krogan spoke again. "Damn. The colonists got away. Someone killed Dailvun. Lets go see what the hell is happening."

Apparently no one disagreed, and after a couple of seconds, Desmond saw the krogan and a few other 'Nova Crusaders' walk by, heading towards the open area that the colonists had been herded to. He was relieved, but just for a moment before a loud explosion brought him back to reality. It was followed by several others. The mechs were shooting now. The sound of gun fire began to echo throughout the colony once again, but this time it would be even more chaotic than before. Desmond smiled. So far the plan was working.

But his job wasn't over. It was time to get back to the reason why he came to Perfici Domus in the first place. Desmond moved out from his hiding place and kept heading deeper into the heart of the colony. Perfici Domus may have been a remote colony world, but the planet held some valuable secrets. An old Prothean relic had been found there before the colony was built. The Alliance had kept this relic secret, so that they wouldn't have to share anything with the Council until it was decided what to do with whatever information it could provide.

In light of the recent attacks on human colonies, Desmond had been dispatched to collect this Prothean relic so that the Alliance wouldn't lose it if Perfici Domus was targeted. He sighed once. Members of Project Wraith like him wouldn't be used by the Alliance just to save colonists from pirates, or whoever the fuck the Nova Crusaders were. His job was the Prothean relic. He just hoped that he would have a chance to help the people on Perfici Domus before he had to leave... if he still _could_ leave, of course...

**Approximately 1 hour later...**

Alaeceri pulled into the 'Sphinx' star system. Jerry's list of people that the asari should seek out had said that a man called 'Desmond Young' was in this system, on a planet called Perfici Domus that the Alliance had colonized. He was apparently song Alliance operative of some sort. How Jerry knew that she wasn't sure, but she made a mental note to ask him at a later time.

As she began to move towards the planets current location, an urgent message alert went off. She pressed that accept button to get the message. It was details on a pirate attack. And if came from Perfici Domus!

"Damn!" Alaeceri cursed, maxing out her ships velocity. 'Guiding Hand,' as the asari had named her ship, was fast. But she had no way to determine how old the distress call was. For all she knew, this 'Desmond' had been killed by pirates, and she was going to already be down one potential ally to stop the Nova Crusaders from mass producing Stargazer.

The planet was in sight soon, and her ship's Navigation System automatically put the directions to the docking bay on a screen in front of her. Sensors detected a lot of explosions and gunfire going on not too far below as she moved in to land. Fortunately the docking bay was automated, but that didn't stop the asari from trying to get a response. "Hello, is anyone there?" Alaeceri said into the registered communication channel that was _supposed_ to put her into contact with Perfici Domus docking authorities. But there was no answers. She groaned in frustration and got out of Guiding Hand.

When she left the docking bay, into the internal area of the port, she found the place deserted. But not empty. There were bodies all over the place. Even you human children, who had spent their last moments in the arms of their parents, hadn't been spared death at the hand of these pirates. Alaeceri felt her heart aching, her stomach turning in disgust that anyone could be so cruel. The blood of children, spilt so mercilessly... the action of monsters, not civilized people.

Alaeceri shook her head to bring herself back to reality. She looked around, and saw that the only door that wasn't barricaded was the one to the Communications Tower. The asari walked over to the door. It was locked though. She wondered if there were more dead bodies on the other side. Or maybe there would be someone alive? And what would they think of her, showing up dress like she was ready to fix a broken engine on some piece of heavy machinery, showing up to a small colony that had been, and possibly was still being, savagely attack by raiders.

She sighed, and decided to press the button that would normally open the door. Locked, it would alert the people on the other side that someone wanted to be let in. After a few moments, Alaeceri was greeted by the door being opened, and the business end of a rather large gun barely more than an inch from her face. She slowly raised her hands. "Who the hell are you?" Asked the man holding the gun.

"I uh... Captain Alaeceri of the Guiding Hand. I'm here looking for Desmond Young..." She said, glancing behind the man.

"Shit..." Came another voice, female this time. A young woman stepped forward and shoved her way in between the man withe th gun and Alaeceri, though this dark haired and dark eyes young woman was armed too. At least she wasn't immediately threatening the asari. "He was here earlier. Gave us a program to scramble the targeting system of the pirates' mechs."

"He _was_ here?" Alaeceri repeated more than asked. "Where did he go?"

The woman shrugged, gently pushing the man aside and gesturing for Alaeceri to join them in the Comm Tower. "I'd tell you if I knew. He went out to help some of the colonists who had been taken prisoner, but hasn't shown up again." She explained.

Alaeceri thought that was a little suspicious. Desmond was apparently Alliance. "He didn't leave you with a comm channel you could reach him on?" The asari asked.

The humans all looked at each other in turn, and then the young woman, who seemed to be in charge, spoke once more. "Now that you mention it... he didn't seem to really care about keeping in contact. He didn't even wait for anyone to offer to help him. Just took a couple of guns and left." She said, coming to the realization that Desmond's behaviour had been quite strange.

"Great... so he's gone and possibly dead, and the pirates are still here?" Alaeceri asked. He brought he hand up to her face and sighed. "This is going to be a real bitch to deal with..." She added, shaking her head.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Killer's Motive**

"Its already a bitch." Jessica Leduc said to the asari. She closed the door that the asari had come in though, locking it once more. "Look, I'm sure you probably picked up our distress call before you got here. Your friend decided to try and be a hero I guess. He had a good idea, but it needed changing to save people."

"My friend?" The asari asked, obviously confused. "Oh! Desmond Young isn't my friend. We've never met before. But I've got a few things that need doing, and an old friend of mine said that Desmond is the kind of person who could help." She explained.

Jessica thought about that and then looked around at the rest of her security team. Normally they might have even done a search of the asari's ship because she docked without any prior notice. But given that she didn't look like she was one of those pirates, Jessica decided against it. "Sorry, I'm Jessica. Not very hospitable of me to not get that out of the way early." The security captain said, offering the asari a hand.

"Alaeceri." The asari replied with a smile, shaking Jessica's hand.

"Well Alaeceri, I'd really like to help you. But this colony is in a lot of danger. The security team used to be about three times the size it is now." Jessica said, gesturing back to the rest of her team, just eleven people including herself. "I don't know how many of those pirates survived when we put Desmond's plan into action. A lot of them died, definitely." She continued. "But there were a lot of them. If you stuck your head outside you could probably still hear the gun fire."

"What was his plan?" Alaeceri asked.

Another one of the security team, a man who looked still a little on edge, spoke up. "He set up a program to break the targeting control on all of the pirates' mechs. They opened fire on everything in sight. We set if off right after Desmond got the prisoners out of harms way."

Jessica was still impressed to hear it. Reprogramming one mech was hard enough, but reprogramming a whole slew of them was crazy. And then Desmond had gone out to save people.

"Well, when you put it like that, I think we owe it to him to go and help him out." The asari said, interrupting the security officers train of thought.

"True enough. At the very least we owe him a drink or something. But there still the problem of either the mechs or the pirates out there... or both if that situation hasn't already resolved itself." Jessica said. She wanted to add that with her luck, chances were pretty good that the fighting was still going on, but decided against it. Moral was already low, by the looks on her team's faces. She didn't need to compound the way everyone was already feeling down.

Alaeceri nodded. "Well, I've got a gun, and my biotics." She said, patting her pistol fondly. "And apparently Desmond is the kind of person whose help I need. So I'm going to have to go and find him. Besides, I hate pirates, especially the kind that threaten colonists." She finished. The asari walked to the door that led outside, and then stopped. "Uh... could someone unlock this, maybe?" She asked, looking back at the security team.

None of them seemed very enthusiastic, but Jessica just smiled and walked forward, entering the locking code to unseal the door. "Lock it up behind us and hold tight, boys." She said, looking back at her team. The door opened and Jessica brought up an assault rifle, checking around corners to see if any pirates were about. It was clear. "I'll see you all soon." She added with a wink.

The asari smiled, and followed Jessica's example, grabbing her pistol and getting ready for a fight. Though the two looked like they were in different situations, certainly. Alaeceri was dressed more for a night at a cheap bar getting a little drunk, while Jessica was actually dressed for combat, wearing white armor with green trim. The young woman grinned, considering that the asari would have a biotic shield to keep her safe, so the lack of armor wasn't an issue as long as she didn't just stand in the line of fire and act like a training target.

"You're quick to help out, Alaeceri. You the kind of person who likes a cause to fight for?" Jessica asked while they moved. The two of them shifted from cover to cover. The sound of gun fire was, as promised, very much a constant thing. At least it would cover up the sound of their voices.

"Pretty much, yeah." The asari answered, checking around a corner and then ducking back as one of the rogue mechs ambled along not too far away. It was definitely in a 'seek and destroy' type of way. Not something that they would want to engage if they could help it. "I _was_ a commando a few decades ago, but I didn't like having to take orders. Sometimes the rules were wrong." Alaeceri said, moving on once the mech was safely out of sight.

Jessica could understand that. She had been in the alliance military, but ended up giving that up because she hated things like being ordered to leave innocent civilians to die in order to achieve mission success. It didn't sit well with her to walk away when she could help out. But now that she was security chief of the Perfici Domus colony, she got to make the calls on when they stepped in. She would have accepted if any of the other security officers offered to help them find Desmond, but wasn't going to order them to risk their lives for a man they didn't even know. Not all of them were that kind of person.

The going was slow, because rather than run for the area where Desmond had been seen last, the pair moved quietly. Being a former commando, it wasn't surprising that Alaeceri was able to stay hidden in this kind of environment. But what impressed Jessica was how the asari seemed so comfortable in unfamiliar territory where just about anything they would run across would probably try to kill them.

"So, what's he like?" Alaeceri asked.

Jessica again looked at the asari, having once more been pulled out of her private thoughts. "What?" She asked, confused.

"Desmond. So far all I know about him is that he's good at hacking mechs and is either brave enough or stupid enough to risk his life for people he doesn't know." Alaeceri explained. "And if I'm going to work with him, I'd like to know more than that, you know?"

Jessica tried to think on an answer, but realized that she only knew as much as the asari did. "You know, now that you mention it, I don't know anything else beside all that. I mean, I knew that he was in the colony. He got here a few days ago. But I never spoke with him or even saw him until today." Jessica said. She didn't even know why Desmond was on Perfici Domus in the first place. Might be something to ask when the found him... _if_ they found him...

**Meanwhile...**

The Nova Crusader fell to the ground, having been shot twice in the chest, still squirming, gasping for air. Desmond walked closer, pistol in hand. Before the man could even begin to react, Desmond line up his shot and pulled the trigger. And then the Nova Crusader's head exploded, pieces of skull and brain matter flying away from the man's corpse.

Desmond looked back up at the Geographical Center. That was the cover for the laboratory where the Prothean relic had been kept. While there had certainly been some geographers stationed there by the Alliance to monitor the tectonic plate activity of Perfici Domus and study how it compared to that of Earth and other Alliance planets, it was not the primary purpose of the complex.

Desmond moved to the front door, finding that it wasn't locked. That was a bad sign. If the scientific complex hadn't been secured against the Nova Crusaders, then it was likely that the scientists who worked there dead. Or worse, they were prisoners. That relic had to been kept safe, and if some criminal organization got their hands on it and learned what its function was they might sell it to someone less than friendly with the Alliance. Batarians maybe. If the relic had some kind of warfare implications, that would mean a whole lot of hell that wouldn't be easy to deal with from a black ops perspective, which of course Desmond would likely be dispatched to deal with.

As the door opened, Desmond looked around, frowning and hoping to make sure that nobody was in sight. He sighed, seeing that the science complex was devoid of any sign of life. There wasn't even anything suggestion that weapons had been discharged inside. Had the scientists given up without a fight? Or maybe they ran away. Fuck, that relic had to have been compromised.

Desmond moved carefully through a few hallways until he came to an elevator, opening the door. Rather than press any of the floor buttons, Desmond told the elevator to go to the first floor, which it was already on. Then the elevator began to move down, taking him into the hidden part of the science complex. As the doors opened, Desmond sighed in relief. While the place was empty, the large room seemed untouched.

He walked into the room, moving to the center to where the relic was safely floating is a mass effect stasis field. "Alright, at least this wasn't a total wash." Desmond said to himself. He went to the control panel and slowly used the mass effect field to lower the Prothean relic to the crate that waited underneath it. Once the relic was inside, the crate shut and locked automatically.

Desmond brought up his omni-tool then, and connected into the science complex computer system. When he was asked for a pass code intentionally entered gibberish, ensuring that the security system would reject him. It asked then for an 'administrative confirmation,' that the person attempting to log into the data files was authorized. That's when Desmond entered a real code. It let him access the research that this facility had really been made for: information on the Prothean relic.

He loaded all of the files onto his omni-tool. Desmond smiled, satisfied that he was done here, and put his pistol back to his hip, picked up the crate, carrying it back over to the elevator. He got on the ground floor again, and made his way to the entrance, but stopped in his tracks. "What do you know, an Alliance lap dog go the relic for us." Came a voice from the entry way.

Desmond saw four of the Nova Crusaders walking in, all smug looking. At least the human in the group was. Desmond wasn't sure about the others, being that they were a turian, krogan and batarian. "Relic? Whatever are you talking about?" Desmond asked, setting the crate down slowly.

"Don't play dumb." The turian said. "We had a mole in your little study group, and we know that the only reason anyone would be stupid enough to sneak in here is if they came for the relic. Thanks for getting it for us." He added, sounding quite pleased with himself.

Desmond began to reach for his pistol, when the human brought her sniper rifle up and levelled it at Desmond. "Don't try to be a hero, boy." The turian said. "Sarah here is a hell of a shot. If you drop the pistol and the assault rifle, and then bring that crate on over here, we might let you live."

But Desmond wasn't shaken by the threat, or convinced that he would be allowed to live should he make the decision to surrender. "You'll have to forgive me if I don't believe you." Desmond said. His omni-tool flashed to life, and he hit the 'overload' program, aiming it right for 'Sarah.' Or rather, aiming for her rifle...


End file.
